where orders emerge

Easy for Editorial Writers in the U.S. to Say

Part of your case for keeping a lid on immigration from Haiti is the claim that “Haiti’s survival depends on encouraging its best and brightest to remain and work on its revival” (“Help Haitians, but don’t throw open U.S. borders,” Jan. 29).

An odd argument, especially coming from for you.

In 1963 Al Neuharth left his job at the Detroit Free Press because he felt that prospects for his advancement at that newspaper were dim. He moved to Gannett, your parent company, where he later founded USA Today. That is, Mr. Neuharth migrated to a place that allowed him to put his talents to better use. Both he and the public gained by his migration.

Why should Haitians be denied the same opportunity to move to where their talents can be better used? Why should these real flesh-and-blood individuals be sacrificed to something called “Haiti”? Why should they be confined to working in an economy with a long, sorry history of smothering markets and suppressing the very talents that these people wish to put to use in a freer economy?